Voltaire

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found myself, myself as well.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

The man is either mad, or he is making verses.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

No matter how carefully you plan your goals they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals – this alone is worth the struggle.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.